Latest news with #meteor
The Independent
3 days ago
- Climate
- The Independent
Bright green meteor zooms past Sydney as auroras dazzle across Australia
A bright green meteor was seen zooming past Sydney on Sunday as spectacular southern lights lit up the skies across most of Australia and New Zealand. A Sydney resident named Tom McCallister posted a video of the meteor, about the size of a basketball, traversing the city's skies. 'Absolutely magnificent meteor seen travelling east to west over Sydney this evening,' Mr McCallister captioned the video posted on Facebook. 'This was looking north at 17:57 local time.' Astrophysicist Brad Tucker, from the Australian National University, agreed that the object was indeed a meteor due to its unique blue-green colour, indicative of iron and nickel content. People across New Zealand and on Australia 's east coast were also treated to a dazzling display of southern lights on Sunday. Many skygazers later shared photos of aurora australis on social media. The space weather phenomenon is caused when bursts of charged particles released from the Sun – known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs – interact with the Earth's magnetic field, creating what's called a geomagnetic storm. The lights are called aurora australis in the southern hemisphere and aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere. Pictures posted on social media showed the sky glowing in hues of pink, red and green, with slight traces of yellow. The colours come from different molecules in the atmosphere getting charged by the Earth's magnetic field. Oxygen gives off a fluorescent green hue while nitrogen molecules interacting with the magnetic field generate a blue, red or pink shade. Auroras are seen when a strong solar storm from the Sun hits the Earth. They are more clearly visible around polar regions since the magnetic field is the strongest there. Astronomers have predicted a strong geomagnetic storm on Sunday and Monday after a powerful CME was seen erupting from the Sun on Friday. The latest CME also caused aurora borealis across most of the continental US as far down south as Alabama. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the possibility of a severe geomagnetic storm remained 'in effect'. 'There are indications that the coronal mass ejection passage is weakening, but the solar wind conditions remain elevated, therefore additional periods of G3-G4 levels remain possible,' the NOAA said, using the designations for strong and severe category storms. 'However, we now anticipate that conditions should weaken enough by tomorrow evening, 2 June, that G1 storm levels are the most likely peak response.' The Sun is currently at the peak of its 11-year activity cycle.
ABC News
3 days ago
- Climate
- ABC News
Meteor flashes through skies in Sydney as Aurora Australis seen across southern NSW
A bright flash of light that briefly lit up the Sydney sky on Sunday night was not a rogue Vivid installation but is believed to have been a meteor. Sydney resident Tom McCallister said he was waiting at traffic lights about 6pm when he saw the light appear in the sky. "I was luckily on the ball and had my phone to hand to quickly capture the last few seconds of its flight." Australian National University astrophysicist Brad Tucker said it was definitely a meteor as it flashed a blue-green colour and was travelling faster than space debris does when it is typically seen falling towards Earth. "Meteors have lots of iron and nickel, when it burns up in the Earth's atmosphere you get to see it as burning as a blue-green colour," Dr Tucker said. "It would have been a good-sized meteor, maybe anywhere between a tennis and basketball sized," Dr Tucker said. It capped off a busy week for star-gazers, who have been treated to clear views of the Aurora Australis on the east coast. Joe Cali captured the pink glow in the night sky from a property outside Young in the NSW Riverina region. "It put on an entertaining show for south eastern Australia for 6 hours from the end of twilight until around midnight," Mr Cali told 702 ABC Radio Sydney. "At its brightest a pink glow with some vertical pillars of light were visible to the naked eye. "For other parts of the night, the brightness reduced and you could only see it as a pale grey glow with my night vision." Dr Tucker said the especially visible auroras were down to a strong solar storm ejected from the sun hitting the Earth. "The bigger the storm that leaves the Sun, the more likely the aurora is to be on Earth and the stronger the aurora is," Dr Tucker said. Dr Tucker said the Sun was in the peak of a 11-year cycle of solar activity, leading to the stronger auroras that could be seen as far north as northern New South Wales. "This year and last year have been very active periods from the sun which is quite rare."
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Watch a brilliant 'fireball' meteor explode over China on May 28 (video)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Residents of Maoming, China were treated to a celestial light show earlier this week when a surprise fireball burst to life overhead, illuminating the city before disappearing in an intense flare of light. The fireball burned up over the southern Chinese province of Guangdong at 9:33 p.m. local time on May 28, according to multiple dashcam videos that have circulated online in the wake of the event. The videos show the meteor make a dramatic 5-second journey through the night sky, during which it changed color from a pale green-blue hue to an intense burst of orange-yellow light. This particular fireball may have been a bolide - a special meteor that breaks apart with a dramatic flash of light. A fireball is the name given when a relatively large meteor - over 1 millimeter in diameter - collides with Earth's atmosphere, triggering a fleeting flare of light that can outshine the planets themselves in the night sky. The color of a burning meteor is determined by a number of factors such as its speed, composition and how it compresses the air in its path, according to the American Meteor Society. Bright, reddish flashes of light can arise when fast-moving meteors strike the atmosphere at tens of thousands of miles per hour, compressing the air in front of them. This process causes them to glow brightly in the night sky and has the potential to force atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen atoms trapped in the meteor's path to release an abundance of reddish light, according to NASA. Meteors with a high sodium content also have a tendency to burn with an orange-yellow light. No major meteor showers were active on the night in question, so it's likely that the Maoming City fireball was born of a 'sporadic meteor' - a random piece of space debris left over from the creation of the solar system that happened to collide with Earth on May 28. Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Space photo of the day for May 30, 2025
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A bright meteor, also called a fireball, is seen falling into Earth's atmosphere. From the perspective of the camera, it appears in the sky above the dome of Kitt Peak National Observatory. Kitt Peak National Observatory is in the Sonoran Desert, in Tucson, Arizona. The area was chosen for its access to dark skies and its altitude — over a mile (2.1 kilometers) above sea level — placing the telescope above most of our planet's thick atmosphere. According to NOIRLab (National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory), which, like, Kitt Peak is a project of the National Science Foundation, a meteor streak has to be brighter than how the planets appear in the sky (an apparent magnitude of –4 or brighter) to be considered a "fireball." You can read more about meteors and learn when meteor showers are expected this year. You can also read more about Kitt Peak National Observatory.
The Australian
13-05-2025
- Science
- The Australian
Perth, WA: Witnesses stunned as ‘fireball' meteor lights up sky
Residents in Western Australia have been stunned by a 'fireball' meteor that lit up the skies, even taking astronomers by surprise. The bright fireball passed through the skies about 6am on Sunday over the Central Wheatbelt, producing a brilliant yellow flash and a trail of bright green. Witnesses were able to catch a glimpse of the early-morning meteor from Perth to the Goldfields, however, experts are yet to determine where it eventually landed. Residents in Western Australia have been stunned as a meteor lit up the skies on Sunday morning. Picture: Supplied The Perth Observatory said the astronomical sight was 'most likely an iron meteor' which had been 'orbiting within the inner Solar System'. 'To shine that brightly, the fireball — technically known as a bolide — would have been about the size of a cricket ball to a basketball,' the observatory said online. According to Perth Observatory astronomer Matt Woods, the meteor would have been travelling between 16 to 60km per second, leaving behind a trail of green as the built-up friction melted. It was a sight that took Mr Woods and the Perth observatory team off-guard. 'We weren't expecting this meteor at all,' he said 'The astronomy community does have wide-field telescope surveys constantly monitoring the night sky, and they occasionally detect larger meteors that are unlikely to cause damage a few hours before they enter the atmosphere. 'However, smaller meteors like this one often go undetected until they appear.' The 'fireball' meteor left a green trail in its wake Picture: Supplied Despite being an uncommon sight for everyday Australians, Mr Woods said the meteor wasn't 'as rare as you might think'. 'The earth is struck by around a hundred tonnes of debris each year,' he said. 'However, because about 70 per cent of the earth's surface is covered by water, most meteors fall over oceans or remote areas, making it relatively uncommon for people to witness them.' Some thought the light was the moon. Picture: Supplied The meteor was spotted across much of the state. Picture: Supplied Online, witnesses were dumbfounded by the 'spectacular' sight, with some believing it was an aeroplane. 'Never seen anything like it,' one person wrote. 'Thought someone was driving at us with high beams on at first,' said another, who watched it pass overhead from Newdegate. A resident from Mt Magnet said they initially thought the 'huge and burning bright orange-red' light was 'the moon until it moved'. The meteor created a bright orange and red light. Picture: Supplied Some thought the meteor was the Kosmos 482, a Soviet-era spacecraft that plunged back to earth more than 50 years after its failed launch to Venus. However, Curtin University astrophysicist Steven Tingay told the ABC it was unlikely the fallen spacecraft, which likely landed over the Indian Ocean on Saturday, though European and US agencies are yet to confirm its exact location. The meteor comes days after the Eta Aquarids meteor shower lit up the skies in Victoria, though Mr Woods told NewsWire Sunday morning's meteor was just a 'coincidence'. '(The meteor) wasn't related to the Eta Aquarids meteor shower; it's just a coincidence,' he said. 'The Eta Aquarids meteor shower consists of tiny ice and rocky particles left behind by Halley's comet as it has orbited the sun over millennia. 'In contrast, this meteor was much larger, estimated to be between the size of a cricket ball and a basketball. 'Around this time of year, the earth passes through the trail left by Halley's comet, but this particular meteor did not originate from that shower; it's most likely been orbiting around the sun within the inner solar system.'
